


don't ask me why

by trailsofpaper (Sanwall)



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 07:25:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9425600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanwall/pseuds/trailsofpaper
Summary: David Webster punches a Nazi fuck in the face and goes home with a stranger. It somehow isn't strange at all.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains an asshole expressing antisemitism and anti-zionism through words and violence. But mostly this is a story about two guys sharing a cigarette and a bed.

“What the fuck did you just say to me?”

David almost choked on his beer in the sudden hush that fell over the entire bar.

It hadn’t been aimed towards him - he wasn’t even a part of the conversation; it was just two other guys next in line to flag down the bartender, and they didn’t even seem to have known each other beforehand.

But David had heard what the fuck the one guy had said to the other, and so he carefully set his beer down on the counter.

“I’m just saying,” the one guy said, shrugging and giving a humorless smile. “You Jews would stab us in the back for Israel, so why not get the fuck out of here.”

David saw the body language - the beefier, smiling guy puffing up his shoulders nonchalantly to seem more threatening, the other, the more scrappy one, taut like a bowstring but hunching his shoulders, not in defeat but in preparation to attack - and David decided to swallow down his fear and said,

“Identities are not mutually exclusive.”

Two heads snapped his way.

“What?” Beefy said, his posture losing something of its menace with the confused little head shake he did.

“A person can be Jewish and American at the same time,” David said, straightening up but trying to seem as friendly as possibly. He knew he wasn’t the most intimidating anyway - the woolly, maroon sweater didn’t exactly advertise masculine strength. “Social identity theory has grown to include social identity complexity, i.e you can belong to two groups of people at the same time.”

“I.e?” Beefy repeated scornfully, while the other guy, the one David internally referred to as  _ Scrappy _ ,  his eyebrows drawn over dark eyes, bared his teeth to snarl,

“I don’t need saving, mister fucking Ivy League.” 

David felt a little flame of resonating anger flicker to life in the pit of his stomach.

“I didn’t-” he started, but the beefy guy took a step closer to both David and Scrappy, who moved in between them - very decidedly picking his battle.

“Hey, take it outside!” the bartender called, and David had never in his life actually seen two men just march outside with the very specific intent of beating each other up, so he just stood frozen, gaping after them for a good minute.

The conversation picked up again around David, and one of Beefy’s friends piped up, 

“Man, that’s not gonna end well.”

_ It’s no skin off my back _ , David tried to tell himself as he closed his hand around the beer glass again.  _ If two grown men want to fight in a back alley, it’s none of your business. _

Someone jostled his elbow on their way to the bar.

The headline appeared in David’s mind without any prompting, and his hand slipped off the glass.

_ Man beaten to death in hate crime. _

David was damned if he was going to write a headline like that, so he squared his shoulders and made his way through the crowd, to the outside of the bar. The cool San Francisco night air hit him like a sobering slap in the face, and David pulled in a great lungful of it.

He heard them arguing before he saw them - loud voices echoing off the surrounding buildings.

“-sticking your big nose where it doesn't belong-”

David winced before the blow landed - beefy guy reeled, clearly not expecting it, and barely got his arms up to defend himself. Scrappy was all up in his space, but it quickly turned into ineffectual wrestling as both of them grappled for a hold.

David didn’t see how it happened, but Beefy managed to hit Scrappy in the head with his elbow, pushing him off. David sprang in between them before he could think better of it, holding a hand out like a goddamn police officer or something. Like it would deter anything.

“Your friends inside want you to go back,” David said, watching how the man was trying to catch his breath, looking somehow a little bewildered.

“Yeah, whatever,” he spat and lunged for David.

David had read about how time slows down for people in high stress situations, especially in combat. It didn’t for him, but some kind of primal instinct kicked in nevertheless, and he ducked below the punch without deciding to do it.

He did, however, decide to put his fist up in a nice left hook, clocking the guy on the jaw. David didn’t stop to see how the blow landed; he turned on his heel, grabbed Scrappy’s arm and made a run for it.

They made it several blocks before the blood pounding in David’s ears made him feel a little light-headed, and the taste of iron started to overwhelm the aftertaste of beer.

He slowed down, and realized he was still gripping the other man’s arm. David let go and turned to him. His breath was coming in short huffs, and whatever his expression was, it was obscured by the slightly too long hair falling across his face. It glistened in the flickering streetlight like wet asphalt, and the figure he cut seemed at home on the dusk-blue streets. 

“You okay?” David said, desperately trying to get his breathing under control.

Scrappy straightened up, and replied curtly,

“Yeah.”

He made to brush the hair out of his eyes, but David saw him wince and then he noticed the blood clotting the hair by his right temple, coming from a wound that wasn’t discernible in streetlight that cast more shadow than light.

“Shit, you’re bleeding!” David said, before grimacing a little at his own words. He pushed down the embarrassment and moved closer, reaching out.

“It’s fine,” the man said, batting his hand away. It wasn’t aggressive, however, and David didn’t let up.

“At least let me follow you home. In case you faint on the way or something.”

“I’m not gonna faint,” the man snapped, but his mouth turned upwards in a slanted sort of grin, and David felt his own mouth twitch in response.

“Well, let me follow you anyway,” David said, putting his hands in his pockets. “Otherwise I’ll worry all night.”

The man arched his shoulder in a lazy shrug, indicating the way.

“Can’t have that, I guess,” he said, but now the grin was full-blown. “Joe Liebgott. My friends call me Lieb”

“My friends call me Web,” David replied, unsure if Joe considered him enough of a friend to let him call him Lieb. “Short for Webster.”

“That’s a stupid name,” Joe laughed, but David was already drawn in by the way they had fallen into step side by side, the night enveloping them comfortably in the hushed streets.

“Yeah,” he agreed, shaking his head a little. “But the name my mom gave me is even dumber.”

“Well you gotta tell me now,” Joe said, bumping his shoulder with his. “Otherwise I’m just gonna make up names for you the rest of the night.”

“Be my guest,” David laughed, and bumped his shoulder back, and they almost veered off the sidewalk.

“So is it like Herbert or something?”

“No.”

“It’s old-fashioned, I’m sure. Like  Agamemnon.”

David barked out an even louder laugh at that, doubling over.

“My name is not Agamemnon,” David insisted, wiping the corner of his eye with the heel of his hand.

“I’ll find out sooner or later,” Joe said, and dug out a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket. David wasn’t proud of how his eyes tracked the movement of Joe deftly pushing out a cigarette in between his front teeth, a tantalizing glint of white between the dark of his lips.

“It’s my last one, sorry” Joe said around the cigarette, neatly throwing the empty packet in a trashcan a couple of feet away. David had to hand it to him - he seemed none the worse for wear, with hand-eye coordination like that.

“That’s okay,” David said, kicking a pebble into the dried out shrubbery lining the sidewalk with decidedly less coordination. “I quit smoking.”

“Aw shit, I was gonna ask if you have a light.”

Wordlessly, David stuck his hand in his pocket to produce his lighter. He had quit smoking a great many times.

They both stumbled to a halt, and David felt like holding a breath as he flicked the lighter open. The flame bloomed to life with a mesmerizing slowness, painting Joe’s striking cheekbones and the bow of his nose in red and black. David saw that his right eyebrow had split, but that the blood had stopped oozing, already crusting around his eye and drying in streaks down his cheek.

When Joe exhaled that first cloud of smoke, David couldn’t help the instinct to lean in and inhale.

“You quit smoking, huh?” Joe said, his voice dropping to a murmur. David closed his eyes, humming acknowledgment even as he leaned closer.

“Jesus, okay here,” Joe said, and David blinked his eyes open to a cigarette being offered.

“Jesus?” David said and quirked an eyebrow, but accepted the cigarette nonetheless. Joe rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, and I eat bacon sometimes. So sue me,” he said. David didn’t miss the way his gaze traveled with the cigarette as David pulled a drag of it.

“I don’t care,” he said, blowing out the lungful of smoke with obvious relish. “You can eat as much bacon as you want.”

“I got that. What was it you said?  _ Identities are not mutually exclusive, _ ” Joe said, his voice rising and turning nasal. Websted coughed out a laugh as he handed back the cigarette.

“I do not sound like that,” he protested, watching as Joe grinned around the glowing cigarette.

“I like to think I maybe captured the essence of you,” Joe said, before he inhaled again to purse his lips, managing to form a passable smoke ring.

David watched it sail through the air, dissipating too quickly for him to properly admire it. A comfortable silence fell between them, the rush and noise of the city somehow distant. They were standing close enough that David could feel Joe’s body heat radiating off him.

David’s eyes turned back to Joe’s dark gaze, saw his cheeks hollow around another drag of the cigarette. When Joe blew out the smoke, it felt next to natural to lean in, to trap the smoke between their lips.

Joe tasted overwhelmingly of nicotine, but David pushed in close and opened his mouth, determined to get past it. Joe was surprisingly languid about it - David, insofar as he had managed to envision it, had expected his kisses to be as passionate as his punching - but he just swiped his tongue across David’s lower lip, before grazing it with his teeth.

David put his hands on Joe’s hips, his grip loose, but the proprietary element to it still surprised him. He wanted to push Joe up against a wall, make him snarl again. He settled for licking the inside of his mouth.

Joe seemed to sense some of David’s urgency though, his free hand coming up to cradle David’s neck to tilt his face just right, deepening the kiss. David had to push his leg between Joe’s to keep their collective balance - they were teetering precariously, swaying with proximity.

Joe must have dropped the cigarette, because the next thing David knew was Joe’s other hand pushing through the short hairs on the back of his skull. David moaned at the contact, the sound muffled by Joe’s tongue in his mouth, and the arousal flickered to life in the pit of his stomach, much like his anger had earlier.

When Joe pushed at him to move, David backed up with a willingness that shocked him. Anything to not break the point of contact that was Lieb’s hot breath on David’s lips.

But Joe turned his face a little to the side and David’s lips dragged a wet mark across his cheek as he stretched out his arm and put his hand flat against the side of a building.

“So this is me,” Joe said, David gratified to note that he sounded a little breathless where he murmured into his ear. “My roommate’s out of town.”

David wanted to say something intelligent, but he was only barely capable of nodding mutely as he mouthed along Joe’s jaw.

“Fuck, okay,” Joe breathed, and David could feel him rummage around in his pants pocket for his keys, and vaguely thought about maybe backing off to let him find it. But he clinged even closer instead, demanding attention almost petulantly.

Joe wrenched them both closer to the door, reaching around David to unlock the door. David tumbled backwards with very little grace as the door gave way, but he gripped Joe’s shirt tight and dragged him with him.

They didn’t even stop to turn on the lights, kicking off shoes is they stumbled towards Joe’s bedroom. Well inside, Joe slammed the door shut behind them and wasted no time in getting his hands under David’s sweater. David hissed at the cold of his fingers skating over his ribs, but Joe only laughed silently against his lips and David wanted that to happen again.

That was probably why he let Joe push him down on the bed, why he relished the slight tug in his stomach at the brief second of freefall before his back hit the sheets.

David had a moment to reflect on how he never in his wildest dreams would have expected the night to take this turn. He should be worried about how this would end, how one of them in all probability was going to get hurt, and about the fact that they barely even knew each other’s names.

And yet, when Joe clambered over him to straddle his hips and pull his sweater over his head, David went willingly, raising his arms to make it easier. His pulse quickened when the sweater  got stuck around his elbows, obscuring his vision for a second, but Joe managed to yank it free, leaving David’s hair in what he was sure was a mess.

“Look at you,” Joe said, a hoarse note to his voice, and David felt a blush creep down his neck at the words. He wanted to ignore it, get past it, so he attacked Joe’s shirt, unbuttoning it as quickly as he could. Joe let him, letting David push it off his shoulders, and while he was busy struggling out of the cuffs, David hooked his fingers in Joe’s fly.

“I don’t usually do this sort of thing,” David felt compelled to say, his voice oddly loud in the small room. There was a window with  the curtains pulled close, but all they did was color the streetlight that bled in. Joe’s jeans were warm under his palms.

“What, refuse to tell strangers your name and then fuck them?”

David’s fingers slipped on the button as he blinked up at Joe, who grinned down at him. The left side of him was awash in blue, highlighting the shadows of his features and the planes of his wiry arm and the slope of his shoulder, all of which reminded David of a Rembrandt painting

“Who said anything about fucking?” he asked, finally getting the button open and sliding down the zipper. David pushed his hand in, relishing in the hitch of Joe’s breath when he cupped the hot weight of him, his boxers the last barrier between skin-to-skin contact. He was clearly just as aroused as David, a fact that made David groan a little under his breath.

“I just figured it’d be better than a quick handjob, but I’m down for whatever,” Joe said, bracing himself with a hand on each of David’s shoulders. His hair tickled David’s forehead as he leaned down, lips ghosting over David’s face.

“Me too,” David breathed, releasing Joe’s cock to claw at his jeans until he got the message and rolled off to struggle out of them. David took the opportunity to strip himself out of his chinos and underwear in one fell swoop - they were way past teasing, he thought.

Joe seemed to agree, because when David rolled on top of him, pressing against him like he was touch-starved, he only grinned and slid his hands into David’s hair, elbows locking against his shoulder blades to keep him in place as he bucked up. Their cocks slid together, and David had to hide his face in the crook of Joe’s neck. 

It was too dry, too fast, but he wouldn’t have let up even if he could resist the way Joe tangled their legs together to press him closer.

“Wait,” David gasped, and Joe huffed out a breath that might have been annoyed, but he slackened his grip and let David push up on his arms.

David liked the way Joe looked, laid out and a little flushed, this edges softened by the dusky light, his teeth dug into his lower lip. The dried blood along the right side of his face was a stark contrast to his pale skin, a jarring reminder of what had brought them together.

David trailed a hand along Joe’s side, sliding his thumb over a prominent hip bone.

“Can I suck you off?” David asked, because he figured if he couldn’t be frank on the night he punched a racist fuck in the face, when could he?

Joe huffed out a laugh; David tracked the way his stomach jumped with it.

“Um, yeah you can, but thanks for asking” Joe said wryly, pushing himself up on his elbows to watch. David didn’t understand how there was any blood left to rush to his face, but he ducked down to get his mouth on Joe to hide how much it affected him.

He heard Joe moan loudly as he flattened his tongue against the underside of his cock, wasting no time in getting as much of him into his mouth as possible. He liked the smooth weight on his tongue, the bitter taste in the back of his throat.

David closed his eyes, putting his hands on Joe’s thighs to push them down as he intensified his efforts, relaxing his jaw as he worked Joe over with his tongue and lips.

David felt some spittle work its way out of the corner of his mouth, felt it dribble over his cheek, and he moaned around Joe. Joe twitched beneath him, his anterior muscles stiffening under David’s palms

Joe swore and curled his spine to grab David’s shoulders.

“Fuck, get up here,” he commanded, and David went, meeting Joe halfway in an open-mouthed kiss, his hand colliding with Joe’s collarbone. Joe turned his head and David latched onto his neck, sucking lazily - not hard enough to leave a mark, but kissing the pulse point beneath the curve of his jaw with abandon.

He heard Joe spit into the palm of his hand, and David just had time to shift before he felt a calloused hand on his cock, the grip just this side of rough.

Somewhere between the harsh, wet panting and the slide of coarse limbs, David found enough presence of mind to reach between them and grip Joe, still spit-slick and  warm, so warm in his hand, and at some point they both forgot kissing and just breathed into each other with the effort. 

Joe came first, closing his mouth tight over a groan as he threw his head back. David could feel his entire body grow lax beneath him, but his arm didn’t let up, muscles bunched with effort as he kept working David over. David didn’t even realize how close he was until Joe slung his other arm around his waist, to hold him in place - he gasped with his release, muffling it by biting down on Joe’s shoulder.

For a few, blissful moments, the only sound in the room was their breathing - David felt so sated, half-slung over a body that was as lax and warm as his.

Then Joe moved beneath him, and said,

“I take back whatever I said. Quick handjobs are the fucking best.”

David laughed, feeling lighter than he could remember ever feeling before.

* * *

 

Joe closed his right eye, felt the blood flake off as the skin wrinkled beneath the dried surface. He sighed at the dull ache of the wound across his brow - it had probably been a dumb idea to not tend to it right away.

“Are you gonna need something for your hand?” he asked. Web turned on his side, revealing a vast expanse of chest, and if Joe wasn’t completely wrung out by the most surprising orgasm of his life, he’d set out to map all of it with his tongue and teeth.

Web’s eyes, stupidly blue even in the darkness of Joe’s room, blinked at him, his reddened mouth slightly open.

“My hand?” he said. Joe raised his eyebrows and grabbed Web’s left hand to bring it up to eye level.

“Yeah, your hand,” Joe said, inspecting the bruised knuckles. His middle knuckle had even split, but it was already scabbed over.

“I didn’t even notice,” Web said, sounding completely astonished. Joe wanted to roll his eyes, but he felt a curious pang in his stomach at the thought of deriding him.

Joe let go of his hand, and cradled his cheek instead, pushing his thumb against his soft, slightly swollen lower lip. Web just blinked at him again, and Joe shouldn’t be so attracted to this guy, he really shouldn’t. 

“I can’t figure you out,” Joe said, and felt like he should laugh, but he didn’t. Web shrugged one shoulder and smiled lopsidedly, so that Joe’s thumb slipped into the groove at the corner of his mouth.

“There’s not much to figure out,” he murmured, and Joe decided he liked the sleepy hoarseness that made his voice lower. “I’m sorry for, I don’t know, my weird white saviour complex thing back there. I shouldn’t have butted in.”

Joe laughed this time, a sharp little yap as he pushed up on one elbow, resting his cheek on his hand to look down on Web.

“You really shouldn’t have, Ivy League,” Joe said, and Web seemed embarrassed, looking down. His eyelashes were stupidly dark and long, fanning over his cheeks. They stood out, because otherwise his face was kind of angular and masculine.

“You are Ivy League though, aren’t you?” Joe pressed, the strange pang in his stomach spreading and suffusing his limbs with warm fuzziness. So what if his brow ached, he felt so good that he could fall asleep right there.

“Harvard,” Web admitted. “But it’s been a while.”

Joe pushed at his shoulder, enjoying the solid warmth of it.

“I would have handled it,” he confided. “But thanks for punching that Nazi fuck for me.”

Web huffed out a laugh, his eyes blinking open again. Joe was fascinated to note that he was close enough to see when his gaze came into focus, pupils shrinking and then dilating.

“I’m sure you could have. I don’t think I could punch a Nazi fuck twice.”

Joe nudged his knee with his own.

“So keep me around. I can punch the Nazi fucks for you in return.”

Joe realized a second too late what it was he had offered. He expected regret to flood his gut, but instead he just kept feeling warm and sated and kind of happy. He hadn’t expected to feel happy, not after being elbowed in the face by an antisemitic fuckwit.

Web’s mouth was closed, and he looked like he was thinking. About what, Joe couldn’t even imagine, but he was content to just lie there and see what would happen.

Web opened his mouth, and Joe watched it appreciatively. He liked that mouth.

“My name is David,” he said. Joe met his eyes, and they were big and blue and earnest. 

“That’s not a weird name,” Joe said, biting down on a grin. “You lied to me, David Webster.”

“My mom calls me Kenyon,” Web said, pushing out his lower lip in a pout. Joe blinked at him for a second, and then he rolled on his back to laugh.

He laughed heartily for a minute or two, until Web had had enough and rolled on top of him, kissing him soundly. It only helped muffle the laughter a little.


End file.
